BLOG 1/6/14. THE CHURCH: AN ALTERNATIVE NARRATIVE
It is going to be my purpose, as we enter a new year, to initiate a journey into what can best be described as: an alternative narrative on the form and mission of the church. By this I intend to set aside all of our present experience of institutional Christianity, which is so familiar to us in the west, and project again into the church’s essence, its intended purpose and mission, its communal form as set forth in scripture. Be warned: there are layers of complexity here, and not a few hazards.
This may sound a bit grandiose, or arrogant, but not so. It actually is not something that I came up with on my own. There have been profound studies on this for several decades by those who are my mentors: Leslie Newbigin, Gerhard Lohfink, Jacques Ellul, Darrell Guder, and so many more. But I know that most of the readers of this Blog of mine have not read these sources that have so enriched me, and I want to provoke some fresh thinking on this alternative narrative while acknowledging my indebtedness to others.
Another of my responders has actually asked me to come up with 6-10 macro forces that will be needed to enter into a church if it is to be equipped to reach into the post-Christian culture which most of us experience day by day. Face it: the church is a stumbling block to many. There are so many crazy understandings of the church—not just among those outside the church, but by people who have spent their lives sitting in church meetings.
What I am purposing here is not really a new narrative at all, but the original narrative that has been displaced, diluted, or forgotten as the generations have unfolded. Nor is it a new dilemma. One only has to read the 7th century prophets in the Old Testament to see that such was their message to Israel and Judah: “you have forgotten your calling and your purpose … you have forgotten the Torah, you have forgotten that you were to be a light to the nations. You have all of the accouterments of temple worship what with priests and sacrifices, but you have absorbed the cultural idols around you and have violated you calling to be God’s holy nation.” Those prophets were also warned that most wouldn’t have ears to hear what they were saying—and I suppose I face that same reality with my readers, but I’m feeling reckless.
The same forgetfulness was true among most of the seven churches in Asia Minor who were addressed in Revelation 2-3. They were only a generation away from their apostolic founding, and already they had become too much conformed to the cultural darkness in which they existed.
Ezekiel 20 (vss. 40ff) proposes that Israel is to not only a pleasing aroma unto God, but is to manifest his holiness among the nations. So the apostle gives us the picture of the church spreading the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ everywhere, of being the aroma of Christ to God among those among whom we live (II Corinthians 2:14ff). That tells us something fascinating about the purpose of the church—not some stagnant pool of ‘religious Christianity’ but the church formed by joyous news of God’s gospel of peace in visible demonstration.
Be it known, then, that I want to work on that with you. What misunderstandings will we need to divest ourselves of, and what will be the macro forces that we will need to embrace in order to be that thrilled, equipped, joyous, spontaneous, reproductive community of God’s New Creation?
In my next Blog, I will try to explain to you who I am so you will know something of what forms my thinking. Stand by …
